Where Curiosity Takes You

More than merely curious
W. Barksdale Maynard became interested in Woodrow Wilson when he realized that, like him, Wilson had attended Princeton and, in his 30s, taught at Johns Hopkins. They both also grew up in the South. "We seemed to have similar experiences," Maynard says. "I became curious about him." Curiosity led to his fourth book, to be published by Yale University Press in 2008. It also led to "More Than a Mere Student," about Wilson's days as a graduate student at Hopkins."He's fascinating because he appears to be cold and stiff, but just under the surface he was seething with ambition and passion," notes Maynard, who at Hopkins teaches courses on American art and American and British architecture.

Tackling a taboo
Cassandra Willyard, A&S '07 (MA), Johns Hopkins Magazine's Corbin Gwaltney Fellow, wanted to write "Cutting the Risk" — about a Bloomberg School study on circumcision's effectiveness in preventing HIV transmission — because "it was sort of taboo," she says. "It's hard to talk about things that involve sex and disease, but people need to hear about them." Willyard, who graduated this spring with a master's in science writing, says she's always liked writing about infectious disease, and is likely to continue doing so. She is interning at Nature Medicine in New York through November and plans to continue as a freelance writer after that. We wish her the best. — CP

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